Radio from HAM – he spotted that the pit lane speed limit says 60km/h but it should be 80; it’s amazing how they spot these details.

ALO on the pit lane – “don’t know how many places we’ll recover but we’ll have fun”

Air temperature 33°C; track 53°C; there’s little cloud cover

Radio for NAS waring him about the track temperature
The top 10 are all starting on soft compound tyres, the same sets on which they set their fastest Q2 time
Behind them it’s a mix of medium (BOT, MAG, NAS) and soft (GRO, GUT, KVY, SAI, ERI, OCO, WEH, ALO) with just PAL starting on hard tyres.
HAM leads everyone away on the formation lap
Puff of smoke from ROS and HAM as they get going
MAS can’t get his Williams to move – he says the throttle’s not working – he’ll be pushed in to the pit lane
They’ll all be trying to go easy on their tyres and get the brakes to the target temperatures
MAS is going again, driving to the end of the pit lane
Radio from PAL – “I’m losing power”
Grid forms up
Long wait for the lights to appear
Radio from SAI – “the engine is switched off”
Lights finally come on
No yellow flags from the marshals on the grid
Lights out, and everyone pulls away – I guess SAI’s engine restarted ok

01/56: Contact in turn 1 – VET hits ROS, spinning the Mercedes
VET’s front left wheel is bent back
No on-screen timing info 🙁
Virtual Safety Car deployed
Radio from VES – “Sebastian is crazy!”; “Agreed”
VET has pulled off track and parked the mangled Ferrari
PER has a puncture
Looks like MAG has a problem too

02[VSC]: KVY pits, followed by MAS, MAG, GUT
Radio from VES laying in to VET again
Replay of the start shows VET dived inside VES and tapped him, and then hits ROS
VSC ending

06: HAM f/lap 1:40.090
Radio for RAI – “very hot on the rear caliper – we’re about to get an alarm”

07: Radio for MAS – “we’ve got a front puncture; pit this lap”
Williams mechanics have a new front wing ready for MAS too
MAS pits; they didn’t change the wing though
ROS up to P12; SAI is next

08: ALO closing on BOT
Race control – Turn 1 incident involving car 5 (VET) will be investigated after the race – causing a collision
Radio from VES – “very hard to stay behind (RIC)”; told to manage the gap
GRO has gone off, across the gravel, into the tyre wall
VSC deployed

09[VSC]: Crane in the gravel to remove GRO’s car

10/56[VSC]: VES pits, followed by PER, ROS, HUL, BUT
Radio for ROS telling him to keep positive delta (i.e. don’t exceed VSC speed limit)
GRO walks back to the pits; gives a thumbs down
PER’s stop was a little slow; he barely got out the box before HUL arrived
ROS all over the rear of HUL
VSC ends

“Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo dedicated his victory in the Malaysian Grand Prix to the late Jules Bianchi.” [BBC]

ROS goes to Japan (next weekend’s race) with a 23 point lead over HAM.

When BBC interviewed HAM he said: “My question is to Mercedes. We have so many engines made, but mine are the only ones failing this year. Someone needs to give me some answers because this is not acceptable. We are fighting for the championship and only my engines are failing. It does not sit right with me.”
There’s no way Mercedes (or any of the teams) would deliberately undermine one of their (very expensive) drivers – if they don’t want someone to win, they’d simply replace them with another driver!

FIA reports: “Lewis Hamilton insists he has complete faith in his Mercedes team, despite saying – in the heat of the moment – that the engine failure which robbed him of potential victory in Malaysia on Sunday did not ‘feel right’.”

FIA also reports: “Sebastian Vettel has been handed a three-place grid penalty for next weekend’s race in Japan after the stewards in Malaysia deemed him responsible for his first-corner clash with Nico Rosberg in Sepang.” He was also given two penalty points on his super-licence.

In that same report: The stewards in Malaysia also investigated Haas after Esteban Gutierrez’s car lost a wheel before retiring – the result, they say, of the failure of the rim blowing the wheel past the retention devices. They absolved the Mexican of knowingly driving a car in an unsafe condition, but fined his team 5000 euros after saying that “some function of the design, part failure or fitting allowed the wheel to come loose on the track, which is considered a serious safety issue. The stewards determined that this led to the car being released in an unsafe condition.”